Matthew Hayden breaks another Australian record

[Quagmire]

All Ramps needed was Ponting's skill, Lara's concentration, Viv Richards power, Sachin Tendulkar's technique and Donald Bradman's body, mind and soul.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

Hayden could of walked into any side in the history of the game

That's a joke, right? No chance in hell would he have broken the opening partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe!

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Pete

That's a joke, right? No chance in hell would he have broken the opening partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe!

I can't recall which commentator was on recently... but one (I think Marsh or Chapple) said he wouldn't even have broken into the preceding partnership of Slater and Taylor!

[Nostromo]

Originally Posted by Rachael

I can't recall which commentator was on recently... but one (I think Marsh or Chapple) said he wouldn't even have broken into the preceding partnership of Slater and Taylor!

Interesting comment since neither Marsh nor Ian Chappell (or Slater or Taylor for that matter) has Test records comparable to Matthew Hayden. Maybe the recent change of the Oz ODI to all green has more significance than I originally thought.

[Quagmire]

Originally Posted by Pete

That's a joke, right? No chance in hell would he have broken the opening partnership of Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe!

Walked into any team not any opening partership, hes a good enough batsman to play a middle order role. He would be as good batsman as Hobbs. As Hayden has gotten a bit older his average has dropped it was always around 56+

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

Walked into any team not any opening partership, hes a good enough batsman to play a middle order role. He would be as good batsman as Hobbs. As Hayden has gotten a bit older his average has dropped it was always around 56+

HAH! As good as Hobbs?! Not a chance, NO WAY!

[Quagmire]

Well there isnt much differences statistically.

Ok Haydens played more cricket but lets look at there careers if we evened them up. It is impossible to compare them accuratly because of the time difference, but this is a close as I can get.

Hayden - Last 60 matches, 5413 runs at 54.13, 19x100, 18x50, Hs 380
Hobbs - Last 60 matches, 5299 runs at 56.97, 15x100, 27x50, Hs 211

I dont see much difference, Hobbs averages around 2 runs more but Hayden has more runs and more hundreds. I think it is even.

[Rachael]

Hayden has never played on uncovered wickets... but has played in three countries where both conditions and the quality of the seam / swing bowling actually could occasionally merit attention.

                     Mat    I  NO  Runs HS1  HS2  HS3     Ave 100  50   0
in England            10   18   2   552 138   68   42   34.50   1   1   2
in New Zealand         4    7   0   197  61   38   37   28.14   0   1   0
in South Africa       10   18   0   624 122  102   96   34.66   2   3   5

Hobbs played all but two Tests against Australia and SA... all on uncovered pitches... and before the virtual death of swing bowling... and never got an opportunity to inflate his average with things like a 380 against Zimbabwe....

                     Mat    I  NO  Runs HS1  HS2  HS3     Ave 100  50   0
in Australia          24   45   2  2493 187  178  154   57.97   9   9   2
in England            25   38   3  1723 211  119  107   49.22   4  10   1
in South Africa       10   17   2   982 187   97   93*  65.46   1   8   1

ps. What's Hayden even done against England on Australia's perennially flat pitches? He had the luxury of cashing in (with 300 runs in the match) in the game where Jones screwed up his knee... which accounts for 25% of his runs!

[Nostromo]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Hayden has never played on uncovered wickets... but has played in three countries where both conditions and the quality of the seam / swing bowling actually could occasionally merit attention.[code] What's Hayden even done against England on Australia's perennially flat pitches? He had the luxury of cashing in (with 300 runs in the match) in the game where Jones screwed up his knee... which accounts for 25% of his runs!

With due respect, your line of arguement does not make any sense. Every batsman (or bowler, for that matter) will train and modify his skills to suit the conditions prevalent at the time...which is all he can and should do. Jack Hobbs would have known that he would be required to play on uncovered wickets and so everything...his technique, approach and even his bat would be adapted to suit the local conditions. (In fact, Jack Hobbs was reputedly good in his assessment of sporting kit. He saved up and opened a sports store after retiring from competitive cricket). It so happened that Jack Hobb's batting style was ideally suited for conditions prevalent in that era. For all you know, he might have been a failure under modern batting conditions; you don't know otherwise.

Likewise, during his formative years, Matthew Hayden would have known the sort of condtions that he would be required to bat under and so would have concentrated on building his skills to suit those conditions. He has done that very well so far and better than a lot of other batsmen. You cannot ask for more than that.

At the end of the day, all that matters is how a player performs under existing conditions; if he does well, he is a good player. It is no use arguing how Hayden would have performed under the conditions in which Hobbs batterd and vice versa. It is like saying that someone like Mark Ramprakash is really a great batsman despite his poor record because his batting would have put Bradman to shade if he had been around in the 1930s. And if you go around looking for excuses like Simon Jones' fall helping Matthew Hayden's batting, we are entering the realm of the ridiculous. That line of 'if only' arguement can be extended to almost anything...like if Pietersen had been given out when he was clearly leg before early in his innings of the final Ashes test of 2005.

[Oliver]

I'd be interested to see how long Hayden continues now.

Now that Australia have lost their two World Champion bowlers (from Test cricket at least) the true worth of any future big innings will come to the fore.

Australia's batsmen will now face much greater pressure - on going to the wicket - in the full knowledge that they no longer have an attack to dismiss good teams. If Hayden manages a triple hundred at Karachi or Gillespie a double ton at the Kennington Oval, in the next few years, then they will indeed be great players.

With regard to inflated averages; in days gone by, cricket matches used to involve the use of the entire playing surface.

Test matches in my memory haven’t bothered to use the entire playing surface.

Whether this is because international sides wish to lessen the threat of sharp spinning bowling, or because the ground authorities wish to gain much more revenue from punters sitting closer to the action, I don’t know.

But I am rather inclined to go for the former there, because it’s been a very long time indeed since I’ve seen school-boys sitting cross-legged between the advertising hoardings and the boundary rope.

Doubtless someone will reply that it is an insurance thing; to do with halting the horror of players running full tilt into all that boundary advertising; and by that same token, continuing the exhilarating sight of ultra-athletic fielders slip-sliding on one knee (watch out Simon Jones) to flick-back boundary-bound balls just before the rope.

I still think it is a method of negating the effect of massive spinning deliveries.

Ensuring that a mightily mis-hit smash into the wide deep blue yonder is ever more likely to clear the rope; and giving brutal batsmen fabulous, yet unlikely, high scores.